Outline

Objective

In German "Soziale EntschÃ¤digungs-Recht" and in German private and general insurances, there exist fixed values for different geometrically defined visual field defects. The newly modified method of Esterman [1] is independent of geometrically fixed defects and is tested reexamining the last cases of the university eyeclinic.

Results

For the last 30 cases of assessment for insurances we have reevaluated the assessment by the old and the new system. The old system is published by the German Ophthalmological Society in accordance with the German 'Berufsverband der AugenÃ¤rzte Deutschlands'. On the other hand, the new system of Weber, Schiefer and Kolling is independently evaluating the field defects and gives detailed values of the visual field deficits. In over 2/3 of the cases the scores of the new and of the old system are more or less identical. In the "Soziale EntschÃ¤digungs-Recht" the desired steps are +/-10%, so that the differences are great enough to get the same result. Only in cases with not regular visual field defects within the lower 50 degrees of the visual field the newly proposed system is recommended by social insurances. According to the new publications of private insurances, the new system can be applied to visual field defects of cortical origin, i.e. in cases of homo- or heteronym character.

Conclusions

The new system can help to estimate visual field defects in an objective way. In most cases the level of functional impairment is almost identical in both systems. Sometimes the new system seems to be have a better logical background than the old one, especially in bitemporal visual field deficits.